I happenned to go to Mass up the road at Sts Peter and Paul today. The priest there had an interesting take on the gospel about the Canaanite woman. He spoke of how the country of India has long had a caste system. This system keeps people from different groups from having anything to do with each other. He told a story that seemed apocryphal to me. Mahatma Gandhi was frustrated by the caste system of India and apparently he read the Gospels and came across the story of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. It peaked his interest and he set off to find out more about Jesus. He came to a church with the hope of talking to the minister after the service, but as he entered, one of the ushers stopped him and told him to go worship with his own kind. According to his autobiography, he said, “If Christians have caste differences also,” he said, “I might as well remain a Hindu.” To turn this back to Fr. Pat's homily, how many times is someone's only contact with the Catholic Church when they cross our path? We may not be able to bring someone to Christ singlehandedly, but we may be able to put road blocks in their way by our actions. Great our the days when people say "great is your faith". For that reason, we should not hold back thanks and praise from each other. We can all use that encouragement at times. And in case I haven't mentioned it before, thank you Fr. Pat for this blog, because it really helps me think about the Lord and put together (hopefully) coherent thoughts on a somewhat daily basis.
This is also one of the Gospel verses that I think of when the subject of "dress code" comes up in church. On the one hand, we want to make it clear to people that they should be respectful of God and the holiness in the church, but we don't want to turn people away if they can't afford or don't have nice clothes. It's a hard topic to breach, and it would be nice if others could realize and respect the holiness of the Mass.
petrohd
· 1 year ago
"Leap of Faith"...I know that phrase well....I did a talk to a teen group I help with on that very same topic of how I changed majors in college not knowing what the future would hold....but with faith and with a lot of prayer, I made it through and although I am not quite in the "career" i had studied for, I still apply what I learned in college in a lot of different ways. Thanks for bringing that to light.
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To turn this back to Fr. Pat's homily, how many times is someone's only contact with the Catholic Church when they cross our path? We may not be able to bring someone to Christ singlehandedly, but we may be able to put road blocks in their way by our actions.
Great our the days when people say "great is your faith". For that reason, we should not hold back thanks and praise from each other. We can all use that encouragement at times. And in case I haven't mentioned it before, thank you Fr. Pat for this blog, because it really helps me think about the Lord and put together (hopefully) coherent thoughts on a somewhat daily basis.
This is also one of the Gospel verses that I think of when the subject of "dress code" comes up in church. On the one hand, we want to make it clear to people that they should be respectful of God and the holiness in the church, but we don't want to turn people away if they can't afford or don't have nice clothes. It's a hard topic to breach, and it would be nice if others could realize and respect the holiness of the Mass.